


All or Nothing

by SouthernMoonshine



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossdressing, F/M, Full Mulan, Genderbending, Let's get down to business to defeat the Ke-Han, Original Character kid, Sadly no fighting only dumb romances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernMoonshine/pseuds/SouthernMoonshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fandom needed more genderbending. Starts out in delicate romance and crashes into ribald comedy because I can't write nice things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Un

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by "Anna Begins," by Counting Crows. "Un" is French for One.

Rook blew out a sigh of relief and shrugged off both shirt and binder. 

Now, to get some sleep, and later remind Amery he'd left his damn history book in here _again_. For a man so meticulously neat he certainly did leave his books lying around a lot.

Amery opened the door. "Rook, I - _flaming bastion fuck_."

Rook was torn between snatching up her shirt or just standing there. She went with hands on hips. "Shut the _fuckin' door_ you shit-brained whoreson."

Amery stepped in, shut the door, turned five shades of red in about as many seconds, then primly turned his back. The back of his neck and the tips of his ears were almost glowing. "I...my pardon, I.... _Rook what the fuck_."

"That is what you fuckin' get for not knocking on a body's door like some Mollyrat bastard," Rook sneered, with some vindictive pleasure, because Amery had said _that_ only yesterday. "If you go around telling anybody I will fuckin' gut you like a fish for market." She shrugged her shirt on and buttoned it. "I'm not naked anymore, you ash-brained fuck."

"I'm not...I wouldn't tell!" Amery spluttered, swinging around with an indignant look on his face. "I mean, I...this whole time you've been a woman?"

Rook gave him a bland look, though she was really enjoying the thorough unravelling of Amery's composure. Being amused kept her from worrying about what Amery was going to do with this little secret. She pulled the neck of her shirt open and peered down it. "No, I fuckin' woke up with these yesterday. What do you think."

She moved to sit on her bed. Far from curvaceous, even without her binder on her breasts only made the slightest of disturbances under her loose-cut shirt. Rook crossed her arms over her chest. "Stop fuckin' staring or I'll break your nose."

Amery binked, blushed a brilliant scarlet again, and shifted his feet nervously. "I...forgive me, I am so completely out of my depth I have forgotten all my manners." He tugged at his gloves, and added, "In fact I'm not certain this is some strange dream engendered by Merritt's latest attempt at cooking."

"I thought I smelled something fuckin' burnt," Rook commented, yawning enormously. "Are you done having fuckin' hysterics? I'd like to sleep at some fuckin' point today."

"I'm not having fucking hysterics, I am having an intense fit of extreme disbelief. You have been living in indecently close quarters with thirteen men for the better part of eight whole years and we have all been utterly convinced of your manhood. _You let me sleep in your bed_." This in suddenly scandalized tones.

Rook snorted. "I'm no fuckin' woman of virtue, Amery." Of all the things to be worried about.

Amery stopped, mouth open, and blinked. He closed his mouth slowly, then looked at Rook with furrowed brows. "You sleep with prostitutes." A beat. " _Women_ prostitutes."

The look of confused consternation was too much and Rook promptly dissolved into a fit of absolute laughter. At last she managed, in the face of Amery's complete affront, "You pick the fuckin' _strangest_ things to worry about. An' no, I ain't fuckin' tellin' you _that_ little secret." 

Amery smacked her on the thigh with the back of his hand, then looked appalled at himself. Rook smacked him back and it devolved into a fit of wrestling, as the usual. Rook won when she licked the back of Amery's wrist, a dirty tactic she kept in reserve for when he managed to pin her by sheer advantage of upper-body-strength. While Amery frantically wiped off his wrist, Rook sprawled across his lap on her back. He blinked down at her and blushed abruptly, forgetting even to finish scrubbing his skin pink.

"If you're gonna do that every fucking time you look at me, that's gonna do shit for the whole 'not telling anyone' thing you just said you fuckin' wouldn't do."

"I just...they _move_."

Rook blinked at him, confused. And then Amery very gingerly used a fingertip to prod the side of Rook's breast. It gave her chills all over. Ignoring that very studiously, she said, "Yeah, I bind 'em. "

"All the time? That doesn't seem..." Amery searched for a word, and his palm came to rest splayed over Rook's belly, familiar and warm. "...comfortable."

"I ain't doin' now," Rook pointed out, and Amery pinked. "Most times. I'm used to it. Been doin' it a long fuckin' time."

Amery digested this, and the blush faded again. Absently, he unbuttoned his glove and loosened the fingers of his glove by tugging at them with his teeth, until his hand slid free and he let it drop across Rook's ribs. His bare hand he tangled in Rook's hair. Rook sighed, because that felt so good, and her eyes slid half-closed, body relaxing to boneless over Amery's lap. As Amery's fingers picked through her braids, she picked up his abandoned kidskin glove and straightened it, smoothing the familiar bends of his fingers, coaxing the seams to uncurl.

"I...you once told me your name used to be John," Amery said, suddenly. "That...can't quite be true?"

Rook considered it, and shook her head minutely. "Was my father's name. Mine was Joan."

Amery made a soft noise, mouthed the name, and fell silent. Rook finished with the one glove, and slid her hands down to tug at the other. Amery rolled his hand over in her grip, and let her remove it as well. "Strange, you don't make for half as an attractive woman as you do a man," Amery mused, and Rook choked.

"The _fuck_ Amery?"

Amery jumped as if he'd been scalded and blushed scarlet. "Oh shit, I didn't mean to say that."

Rook started laughing again, helplessly. "So I'm ugly, so fuckin' what, like I care."

"I - no, that's not - _Rook_!" Amery protested. "You are _impossible_ I swear to Saint Regina!"

Rook's laughter died as she realized something. "Wait. Does that fuckin' mean you thought I was fuckin' attractive as a man?" Amery suddenly looked intensely guilty, and Rook considered this new information with disbelief. Her sense of mischief got the better of her. "You sleep with prostitutes." A pause, and Amery was already reaching to put his hand over her mouth as she choked out: " _Women_ prostitutes," imitating his broad country accent.

Rook licked the palm of Amery's hand this time and watched with glee as he went into a squirming fit of disgust. It was hell on her back but it was worth it. 

After several moments of scrubbing his hand on his shirt, Amery said, somewhat stiffly. "I may...find myself appreciating certain qualities of...both men and women."

Rook snorted at him, and Amery's spine unbent a little. They were silent, and Amery resumed running his fingers through Rook's hair.

"Rook... May I..."

"No. You may fuckin' not." Rook didn't open her eyes and squashed the hopeful hesitant tone thoroughly. She wasn't sure she could have done it and still seen his face.

"Ah." Silence again, and then Amery asked, "Would you care to attend the ball my parents are holding next month?"

Rook cracked an eye. She wasn't sure what exactly was in his face, but it gave her chills all over, as had his careful prodding of her flesh earlier.

It was not, she found, an entirely unpleasant sensation.

"I might."


	2. Deux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Deux" is Two in French

"However did you get rid of the blue in your hair?"

"I fuckin' didn't. It's still there. Just hidden." Rook bit her lip and fiddled with the button to her stupid gloves. "This is the fuckin' dumbest idea you've ever had. Shit, how do you fasten these things all the damn time?"

Laughing, but gently, Amery stepped close and neatly fastened the troublesome buttons. "Practise." His hand lingered on her bare upper arm. "I take it back. You make an astonishingly handsome woman."

"I do not, but you'd be damn surprised what a little paint an' ruffles can hide." Rook sucked in a breath, and added, irritated, "An' _bastion fucked stays_. By Havemercy I am never fuckin' wearin' them ever a-fucking-gain. Enjoy it, you bastard, this is the only damn time in my life I am wearing a fuckin' dress."

Amery didn't answer, but his hands slipped to frame her hips, warm and sure as always. Rook blinked and eyed him curiously. Then she looked back to the mirror. It was a particularly unsettling transformation: all tarted up and painted and laced up, she actually managed to look like a woman, if one with an unfortunate nose and chin and some stunningly well-muscled arms and shoulders. She did like the earrings, though, delicate gold fancywork that gleamed in the light and hung with a satisfyingly heavy weight from her lobes. She tipped her head to make them swing. Amery looked down at the motion, and his blue-grey eyes warmed. 

"Now if you could stop swearing like a sailor's wife for the duration of the evening..."

"Sailors," Rook informed him, imperiously, "Do not have wives, they fuck whores."

Amery pinched his lips together in his way of laughing without making a sound. Rook grinned. She liked that expression on him a good deal. Amery tucked a curl behind her ear, then offered his arm to her, graciously. Rook took it less because she wanted the gesture and more because she wanted something to hang onto if she tripped over all these layers of ruffled skirts, like so many puffed-up pastry-shells. No substance and all trouble. 

The callouses on her palms were catching at the soft material of the gloves. She'd put a terrible run in her hose trying to figure them out. The shoes and their heels made her tall as Amery. The corset made it hard to breathe like she was used to, and the low neckline of the dress made her feel acutely aware of the rounded curve of her breasts. She was used to the constriction of her binder, laced tightly, but the boning in the corset was entirely new and she did not like it at all.

But it was only for a few hours. Surely she could stand it until then.

As far as countrified balls went, it was nothing like a palace gala. Decidedly smaller, with less outrageous fashion, and better food. The wine was merely passable, Rook found, much to her distaste. The dancing was of a different style, and Amery patiently corrected her steps all evening.

It was wearing late in the night and the shoes were starting to pinch her toes when Amery took her arm, tugged her behind a tapestry, and led her down the servant's hall into the kitchen. He procured several sandwiches, and a dusty bottle of wine, and with a boyish smile of pride, led Rook back upstairs by the narrow servant's staircase. He laughed at her for gathering up handfuls then armfuls of her skirts, baring her legs to the knee, and she swore at him the whole way up, releasing a stream of invective that she'd kept penned up all fucking night long.

Arriving in the room she was staying in, Rook kicked off the damned shoes. "Before anything else fuckin' happens, I am getting the fuck out of these damned stays."

Amery, chuckling, set the food on the chest of drawers, and - as she reached behind her to find the first of the long row of buttons down the back of her dress - asked: "Rook...may I..."

Rook thought about it. "You may."


	3. Tri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tri" is Three in Russian.

Thom thought about the moment he'd known the infamous Airman Rook was, in fact, his long-lost sister. _Sister_. He was brooding over it because he'd woken this morning to find Rook's light out, no sound under the door. Rook had gone, then, and without him. He'd...hoped to have bourne out some sort of bond between them, a reclaiming of kinship. But....

The door to the Airman opened, and a familiar booted tread made Thom scramble to his feet, disbelieving. Had Rook come back for him?

"Rook?"

He rounded the corner and stared in shock. There was Rook, alright, large as life in the hall, with a disdainful sneer for his hopefulness. But Rook was carrying, on his hip, a dark-haired child with eyes as pale as Rook's own, a shocking ice-blue. The boy was about four or five, with slender bones and a rounded face. His eyes, though - as Thom watched him turn his head, he realized the child was blind.

"Who's there?" he asked, softly.

"Thom. A friend," Rook answered, and with a huff set the child down on his feet. "Come along, hang on." With an air of a ritual well-practised, the child grabbed Rook's coat-tail with one long-fingered hand.

"Is he...is he _yours_?" Thom squeaked.

"Is what - sweet Saint Regina, Rook, do you have bastard?" Luvander yelped, appearing suddenly as was his wont to do when news was afoot. He stood in the doorway to the commons: Ghislain loomed up behind him, while Adamo and Balfour - who was only visiting - crowed in at his elbow.

"Halfways," Rook answered, and Thom thought his heart might stop. Was Rook going to spill her secret now, after having kept it for so long? "He's Amery's byblow." Balfour turned pale as a sheet. "Didn't want to fuckin' ruin his reputation, so the brat's under my name on the church papers."

It was, Thom decided after a moment, an incredible story. A perfect lie. Of course Rook, wild as anything and known for his romancing, could father a child by a prostitute and not suffer for it. A nobleman, even a country one, however... Rook shrugged. "Sebastian, say hello to the Airmen. Luvander's the fuckin' loud one, an' there's Ghislain an' Balfour an' the Chief Sargeant Adamo."

Sebastian did so, perfectly polite, and looking between them Thom could see a kind of resemblence to Balfour: something about the cast of the cheekbones and brow, and of course the pale skin and dark hair of a nobleman. But those ice-blue eyes and thin lips only put Thom in mind of one person, one person who was nonchalantly standing there with the child's head beside her elbow as if this were all perfectly routine. 

"I...I never knew. I...it would be...right for the Vallet family to...to take in the foundling," Balfour managed, faintly.

"Don't fuckin' worry about it," Rook returned, sharply. "Like I said, kid's in my name. No fuckin' connection to Amery. I got money an' a woman set up for him. Just came to get my fuckin' shit so I can head off after I fuckin' deliver him. Come on, brat."

Rook strode off down the hall, with the child in tow. Thom gaped a moment longer, then scrambled to follow. He was only just allowed entrace, and Rook slammed the heavy door shut behind him. 

"Keep your fuckin' voice down an' ask," she told him.

"He is yours. And...Amery's?"

"Yeah." Rook bent and gathered the child up in her arms again. He flung chubby arms around her neck and giggled a little, smile wide. "Help me get my packs. I'll tell you when Luvander ain't fuckin' eavesdropping at the keyhole." She carried the boy to the bed and sat him down. He bounced cheerfully.

"Thom is playin' too?" he lisped.

"Yup. Fuckin' playing along." Rook grabbed up her packs, and looked around the room to make sure everything was taken. Then she looked at Thom expectantly. His heart lurched and he couldn't help grinning.

"I'll go get my bags," he said, and hurried. 

They walked out of the city entirely, with Rook alternating between carrying Sebastian and letting him walk, tiny hand cradled in her larger, calloused one. It wasn't until they reached a small homestead and Rook snuck into the barn that Thom began to understand anything - because Rook came back out wearing a dress, and carefully pinning her distinctive hair under a bonnet. 

"Then...you are going to be the woman...don't you think they'll notice?" 

"They'll be looking for fuckin' me. I'm not me anymore," Rook returned, rolling her eyes. "You think anybody would recognize _me_ in a dress? Sebs, come here."

With perfect trust, the blind child walked to her call. She stroked her fingers through his wavy hair. "Amery an' I...we were drunk, one night, after he found out about me. A month later, he was dead. I only knew I was fuckin' knocked up after I started getting sick regular, every fuckin' morning after the raids." Rook sighed, and started back to the road towards the city, holding Sebastian's hand. "I didn't...I kept bleeding. I kept thinking I'd lose it. Except I fuckin' didn't. He was born...too fuckin' early. I didn't get big, which was good, I don't know what I'd have done then. But I knew he was too early. I didn't think he'd fuckin' make it. But the midwife I went to...she did good by him. Real fuckin' good. I couldn't fuckin' keep him, so I made arrangements."

"But now the war is over."

Rook nodded, and said, very softly, "The war is fuckin' over, an' he's the only piece of Amery I have left."

Thom hadn't known until that moment he'd had any heart left to break for Rook's sake.


	4. Chetiri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Chetiri" is Four in Russian

Thom stuffed the last of his books in his bag and hefted it. He went to the door and opened it: he was going to be late for lecture as it was and....he blinked. The doorway to their modest house in the lower end of Charlotte was crowded with former Airmen. Plus one. "Raphael!"

Balfour smiled. "I told you he'd recognize you," he said softly, and Raphael chuckled.

"Whatever are you doing here? And how do you even know where I live? And why ain't - aren't you dead?" Thom demanded, in amazement. Living with Rook was adversely affecting his grammar.

"Please, Thom, as if you doubt my ability to know all the gossip, of course I know exactly where our favorite professor lives," Luvander sniffed. "As for how he is not dead, I'll leave that up to Raphael to explain. Apparently it's highly complicated. Ghislain found him."

Ghislain grinned. "Funny what stories you hear out on the seas. Sailor are gossips worse than Luvander."

Luvander huffed imperiously, but everyone else smiled, even Adamo.

"I've got class in a bit, but perhaps we could meet later for tea -" Thom began, and was interrupted by a familiar roar. He spun on a heel to face the shout.

" _Sebastian you come back here you cinder-bit fuckin' child_!" There was the scrambling of feet, and Sebastian came running into the hall, heading for the kitchen, blind eyes wide and mischief on his face. Rook skidded out into the hall behind him and caught him in three strides. 

She was wearing a thin limen chemise that revealed a great deal of long, shapely leg, a scandalous amount of pale thigh, and the neck was untied, gapping open as she bent to grab her errant son, framing the round of one small breast and perky dusky nipple as she scooped the boy up. Her uncovered and untamed hair flew in all directions, braids and blue streaks still present. Sebastian was small even for six and burst into merry giggles as Rook, still ranting, dragged him back into the depths of the house.

"Sebs! Fuckin' hiding my fuckin' shoes when you know I need to fuckin' get to work so I can earn your damned bread money! You get that all from your fuckin' father he had the worst sense of fuckin' humor I ever had the smoking bad luck to encounter, you little nit-brained bastard you!"

"Silly mama!"

"I'll 'silly mama' you, little fuckin' brat!"

Thom, unable to resist, shouted down the hall, "Don't you think some of that comes from you?" It was a familiar theme and he was grinning because he already knew the answer. He'd heard it before, as it was Rook's favorite rant for when someone needed to be blamed for Sebastian's playful and capricious nature.

"It's all fuckin' Amery's fault! Ain't the bitch they breed for fuckin' bloodlines, it's the _dog_ ," Rook roared back, and at Balfour's startled squeak, Thom recalled his unexpected guests.

Cringing, he turned and found them all wearing various expressions of shock.

"I think we should all go have tea in Luvander's back room," he said, delicately, and shoved out onto the doorstep and shut the door firmly behind him.


End file.
